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YouTube restricts gun videos

The video platform published new guidelines this week that ban videos showing how to assemble a firearm or install certain accessories such as high-capacity magazines. Photo courtesy MGN

By Hadas Gold

(CNN Money) -- YouTube is getting tougher on gun videos.

The video platform published new guidelines on Monday that ban videos showing how to assemble a firearm or install certain accessories such as high-capacity magazines.

The new regulations, first reported by Bloomberg, come as the Google-owned platform has come under criticism for lax policies regarding what content users can post.

"We routinely make updates and adjustments to our enforcement guidelines across all of our policies. While we've long prohibited the sale of firearms, we recently notified creators of updates we will be making around content promoting the sale or manufacture of firearms and their accessories, specifically, items like ammunition, gatling triggers, and drop-in auto sears," a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement.

The spokesperson said YouTube will begin enforcing the new guidelines in April. The company said it is not banning gun demonstration videos.

Among the new rules: No videos that intend to sell a firearm or certain accessories that turn a firearm into an automatic weapon are allowed. No videos that provide instructions on making or installing a gun, ammunition, high-capacity magazine, homemade silencer or other certain accessories will be allowed. Neither will videos showing how to convert a firearm into an automatic weapon.

For years, YouTube has banned firearm sales on its platform. The platform has been gradually increasing restrictions on certain gun videos. A few days after the October mass shooting at a Las Vegas concert, YouTube banned instructional videos that showed how to install and use a bump stock, which increases the number of bullets a rifle can fire.